Sunday 1st May

We are all heart broken at the passing of Jimmy's mom, Isabel on Thursday night.  Her cancer diagnosis was a huge shock to us in March.  It was the last thing that any of us thought would happen after our last two years of ups and downs with Jimmy.  It is really is hard to believe that just more than a month later she is gone.

Mom was diagnosed with Carcinosarcoma of the Uterus which had already spread to her ovaries and lymph nodes in her stomach.  Mom had her first and only round of chemo on the 7th of April.  She was very weak for the 7 days after this but a week later she was feeling a bit stronger and eating better too.  She even started doing some knitting again and was much more talkative.

We left for the Kgalagadi on Friday the 22nd and on Tuesday Dad phoned to say that Mom wasn't very well.  In the early hours of Wednesday morning my dear friend Maureen picked them up to take mom through to hospital.  We waited to hear from the Doctor during the day on Wednesday and on Thursday morning we packed up and drove the 12 hours straight to the hospital.  Isabel passed away peacefully an hour an half later.

I would like to express my appreciation for all the beautiful messages and the support we have been given by family and friends.  Maureen, I don't know what we would have done without you, you have been a true angel.  Also a big thank you to my brother Guy who was travelling back from Namibia on a business trip.  We left the caravan in Van Rhynsdorp once it got dark and we hit the heavy rains on Thursday night and he picked the van up the next morning and brought it home for us. 

I unfortunately do not know all the names of Ewen and Isabel's friends, the knitting ladies and Methodist ladies as well as some of the neighbourhood friends Ewen has made when he takes Keira for a walk each evening as well as Ewen's hiking group who have been a wealth of support over the last month.  So many meals, a crochet blanket, a juicer and telephone calls....thank you very much.

I would also like to mention a special thought for young Ewen, Jimmy's brother, who is in the UK as well as Loren who is in Virginia.  I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for them not being with us during such a terribly painful and sad time.  A big thank you to Claire, Andy, Ray, Bernadette and Pam for comforting and being there for Ewen.  I also could not have asked for Loren to have a better host mother, thank you for supporting Loren and giving her all the love you do Danielle.

We count our blessings that Isabel did not suffer and she was so peaceful when she took her last breath, with Ewen at her side.

Friday 8th April

We are playing the waiting game again.....

Jimmy last saw Prof for his monthly check-up on 2nd of March and unfortunately we forgot to make his next monthly appointment.  Prof Novitzky has also been overseas for 2 weeks so now we are waiting to hear when they can fit Jimmy in.  At this last appointment they did bloods for the M-spike count to see if Jimmy's cancer numbers are still between 0 and 5 which they class as remission and we haven't had these results due to Prof being away.  We have also had no news on the motivation Prof was doing for Jimmy to start maintenance.  And lastly Jimmy has been complaining of stiff legs, knees and back which has gotten worse over the last few days.  At first I thought he was coming down with flu because this is how he usually starts it but it has been too long now.  We spoke to Sister Olivia yesterday and she told us that Jimmy's platelet counts have come up to a whopping 250 (normal is 150 - 400) and she suspects that they may have come up too much too quickly so he is going to stop the NPlate injections till Prof is back and they can access the situation.  It's wonderful news that his platelets have come up so nicely.  Jimmy is now also off Cortisone all together so they will also be monitoring his platelets now to see if they remain stable or start dropping again without Cortisone.  So in spite of the waiting it is good news all round.

We spent a lovely time camping at one of our favourite spots in Bonnievale over the Easter period. We had all the children with us for a few days except of course for Loren but it was good to have some family time together.  Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best.  We usually laze for hours in the river on our pool noodles and this time it was quite a bit colder so we only ventured down to the river bank once to sit in the warm sun.  We had 2 very windy days when I was thankful that we have a caravan.  The families camping in tents had a hard time with the wind and after some heavy downpours many of them were drying bedding and mattresses.  'Glamping' is just so much better ;)

A big congratulations to Megan and Cosmin who got engaged.  They are still on vacation between contracts so Megan was here for a bit and is now over in Romania spending a month with Cosmin and his family.  It is the Romanian custom to have a celebration but they haven't set a date for this yet.  Megs will be home at the end of the month for 2 weeks again before they meet up and join the Norwegian Cruise Line Escape which is the biggest and newest ship in the fleet.  They will be based in the USA and do various voyages from Miami up the East and West coat of the Caribbean.

And then on an extremely sad note, we have had some devastating news.  Jimmy's mom, Isabel, has been diagnosed with cancer.  We went with them yesterday for Isabel's appointment with a whole panel of specialist and she also started her first round of Chemo.  Her chemo is administered intravenously and she will have treatment once every 3 weeks over 6 cycles.  I will not go into details of her cancer as Ewen and Isabel are very private people and I would like to honour this but it is a very aggressive cancer which has metastasised.  We pray that Isabel doesn't have to suffer and that the side effects of the chemo are not too harsh.  We are blessed to have them living in their cottage on our property so we are nice and close but I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that we have been dealt two cancer blows in one household.

As I have said many times cancer is a journey likened to travelling a dirt road of which there will be many trips.   Isabel's diagnoses is another route on what is our journey, that we have not travelled before.